A Study On Assessing Factors Associated With Medication Non-Adherence And Evaluating Medication Adherence In Elderly

Abstract

Medication compliance refers to the degree or extent of conformity to the recommendations about day-to-day treatment by the provider with respect to the timing, dosage, and frequency¹. Patient medication compliance is an important parameter in management of chronic diseases in elderly patients. The present study aimed to evaluate medication non-compliance barriers and the effectiveness clinical pharmacist intervention in promoting medication adherence in geriatric patients with chronic diseases.an prospective observation study was conducted in total of 275 patients aged above 60 years with chronic illness were (178 women and 97 men). The patients’ mean age (SD) was 55 (±23.934) years.  Approximately 38.9% were illiterate, primary education (23.2%), secondary education 17.09% high school, 12.4% Bachelor’s degree education, 5.8% Master’s degree) and 2.5% PhD holders were documented in the study. The MMAS scores were categorised previously into the following 3 levels of adherence: high adherence (score, 8), medium adherence (score 6 to 8), and low adherence (score < 6). The study population had 53.84%% with low adherence, 31.63% medium adherence, and 14.5% high adherence. All the values are found to be significant as p≤0.05. The common barriers of medication non-compliance founded during the study are polypharmacy 97patients, forgetfulness in 158 patients, duration of therapy 146 patients, lack of hope in 95 patients, psychological attitude in 102 patients & 133 patients reported as on subside symptoms. Pharmacist involment in improving medication adherence is very much needed to improve therapeutic outcome. This study suggests that it is importance of targeting social support in screening and intervention approaches in order to improve adherence among diverse patients.